The wails echoed off the tile surfaces of the emergency room at Yarmouk
Hospital. Amid the blood and stretchers, Majeed Aboud turned his
tear-stained face to the body of his 5-year-old son, Mohammad, one of at
least 34 children killed when a car bomb exploded as they gathered around
U.S. soldiers handing out candy and cakes in a southern Baghdad
neighborhood.
The child's thin body was covered by a sheet. The sheet was covered with
blood.
"My boy was playing around with other kids when the first car bomb
exploded," Aboud said when he recovered the ability to speak. "I brought
him here, but they could do nothing for him."
"Why? Why?" a mother asked as a doctor bent over the bloodied chest of
Russul Abbas, whose entire front was perforated by bits of metal smaller
than dimes. "Why does this have to happen to my 8-year-old kid?"
- BAGHDAD, Oct. 1
